“And why is that?”
“Because I have a lot of other stuff going on that’s distracting me from it. I know that’s no excuse. But I have a stalker and—”
“You have a stalker?”
“Yes. My mother doesn’t seem to think it’s anything, but there’s this guy that I met at the gym and he randomly shows up at my apartment and thinks that we’re meant to be.”
“I’m sure that’s rather distressing.”
“It is! But he hasn’t done anything yet that would warrant calling the police. And then I got fired from my other job because I found out the manager was embezzling money, and then the next job, this guy I knew from the gym basically got for me, but . . . I ended up sleeping with the boss there. That wasn’t my plan, but I just felt this attraction toward him that I’d never felt with anyone else before. It was unreal, almost, and then the fact that he seemed to feel the same way. These sorts of things never happen to me. Life felt really exciting for a little while, like I was excited for it to be Monday, the start of the work week, so I could see him, because all I wanted was to just be around him. I didn’t care what we were doing. I felt like I was in high school again. And then I found out that’s basically what he does with all his secretaries. I know how that sounds. I’m not really like that at all, either. I was actually a virgin until I met him. I felt like we had this connection, and to be honest, I think we still do, but he recently told me the girl he slept with before me is pregnant.”
“That must’ve been quite the shock.”
“Yeah, it was. And it’s made me question everything that I was feeling before—like, can I even trust my own feelings? Which seems to go hand-in-hand with the fact that I have no clue what I’m doing with my life. Maybe that’s the whole reason why I don’t to begin with—I can’t trust my feelings.”
“What is it that your feelings are telling you?”
“That he and I have this connection. That we’re—” this was going to sound so stupid—“meant to be together.” I looked down at my hands.
“Granted, I don’t know all the details of your particular situation, but perhaps your feelings aren’t wrong. You did say the person he got pregnant is someone he was with before the two of you first got together, correct?”
“Yes,” I said slowly.
“And from what you’ve told me so far, that sounds like it’s the major reason why you’re suddenly questioning your feelings to begin with.”
“Well, that and the fact that this person also used to be on his secretaries. So I sort of feel like I’m just another in this line of secretaries that he’s slept with.”
“That’s a valid point,” Carl said. “But it’s rooted in fear and projection. Has he been with anyone else since the two of you got together?”
“Not that I know of.”
“But you fear that he might discard you like he did this previous secretary after he’s gotten tired of you.”
“Something like that.”
“That’s totally normal,” Carl said. “Whether you’re twenty-five or forty-five. That part of your problem isn’t so much unique to the quarter-life crisis as it is to simply being human.”
“Oh, okay,” I said. “We don’t have to talk about it anymore then; my mom said that you just wanted to talk about the quarter-life stuff.”
Carl waved his hand dismissively. “Nonsense,” he said. “You’re here now, and I think talking about this is helping you to work through it.”
“I just feel like nothing is in my control. You know, when you’re growing up, you’re fed this idea that if you do the right things—if you get good grades in school, if you go to college—that life is going to work out, that you’ll have some clear direction and know what to do. But that seems like it’s one big lie, because I did all that and I don’t have any clue what I’m doing, and I’m even more confused than when I was younger. So for maybe a small percentage of the population, when it comes to people my age, maybe for them, it has worked out just how we’re led to believe it’s supposed to, but for the rest of us, we’re just kind of floundering around, feeling like we were duped.”
“You are certainly not alone in feeling that way.”
“And that’s what makes it even harder—when you feel like you can’t trust your feelings.”
“When you think you can’t trust your feelings,” he corrected me. “It is true that sometimes our initial feelings toward something might simply be a reaction, and that after we’ve had time to process it, we can see that there is a better choice to be made.”
“What do you think I should do?”
He smiled gently. “I can’t tell you what to do, Daisy.”
“You’re the professional, though, aren’t you? Isn’t that what people pay you for? Isn’t that why you’re writing this book?”
“I’m writing this book because this is a phenomenon that interests me. This is the first time this sort of thing is happening, in this magnitude, and I admit, I find it fascinating. But so far as telling people what to do—I think the best I can do is to say keep a clear head, listen to your thoughts and feelings, and don’t lose hope.”
I nodded. “Okay.”